“Hopefully by the end of this week I’ll start throwing a little bit, starting picking it up from there,” he said. “The big test is just throwing.”

Walker was sharp in his first two minor-league starts of the season, striking out 17 in 9-1/3 innings.

“I was throwing really good and I came off a pretty good start and I was throwing good and all my pitches were feeling great, and then I just woke up and it just wasn’t feeling right,” he said. “I didn’t feel normal, and I didn’t want to go out and push anything. I probably could’ve pitched, but it probably wouldn’t have been the smart thing to do.”

Walker was asked if he thought his offseason weight-lifting program might have contributed to his shoulder soreness.

“You know, that could have been it,” he said. “I was doing kind of different, some overhead shoulder workouts. That probably could’ve started it up. But who knows what it was? It kind of just came out of nowhere.”

Help could be on the way sooner for the Mariners rotation, with Hisashi Iwakuma is scheduled for a rehab start with Tacoma on Tuesday, though there is rain in the forecast.

The Mariners return home for tonight’s game against Houston on a six-game losing streak. McClendon was asked what his message was to his team after getting swept in Miami.

“The sky is falling, the Mariners are four games under and everything’s going to hell,” McClendon deadpanned, drawing a laugh from the assembled media.

“Like I told my guys: ‘Relax.’ I mean, we’re no different than any other team in baseball. We’re going to have our funks, and right now we got our funks and we’re four games under. But last time I checked, it’s a 162-game schedule and this team will be fine. We’ve got to get our pitching straightened out. Obviously, with our starting pitchers, we’ve been dealt a tough hand with that, and we just got to play it out. Once we get beyond that, I think this team will be just fine.”